


Chemical Soup

by yolklessegg



Series: Gay Sappy Shortstories [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: ?? kind of, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awkwardness, Biochemistry Major Johnny, Chemistry, Coming of Age, Crack, English Major Jaehyun, Fluff, Gross, Humor, Ice Cream, Light Angst, M/M, Making Out, Mental Health Issues, Romance, Sappy, Sexual Tension, all of the ages are fucked up just know johnny is older than jaehyun and mark is...somewhere, except they're in their 20s and old, this is literally just 19k words of crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yolklessegg/pseuds/yolklessegg
Summary: prompt: basic coffee shop au but make it super messed up-"Hi, uh..." Jaehyun pulled his cheeks into an awkward, straight smile. "I was wondering if I could get another white chocolate iced mocha."He was just a basic bitch after all. Johnny swooned."Yes! Of course. Almond milk?" Johnny teased, quirking his lips into a half-smile."Ha. Yeah." Flat.HhnngGHngngnngjjfnfffnfnfnhnnnnnggngnnfngngnnngJohnny didn't like that.He turned back to make the drink, thinking about how white chocolate + mocha + almond milk could possibly taste good. Fuck Jaehyun.-19k words of brain fuck and johnny being a biochemistry major
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: Gay Sappy Shortstories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1432273
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	Chemical Soup

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i just wanted to add a slight trigger warning because this work does include descriptive mentions of a sensory overload and self-deprecating thoughts and feelings! although this one-shot is to be taken completely with a light heart as 95% of it is pure crack, i do want u guys to keep in mind that i do go over some serious topics like mental health, illness-related death, and weed. didn't mean to make this note so long but i just want that to be something you keep in mind before reading this :) sorry for the wait!
> 
> i've been writing this for exactly a year now, so a lot of myself and my own experiences and emotions kind of found their way in here. oops?
> 
> this is just crack man! just keysmash!

-

prompt: basic coffee shop au (but make it fucked up)

words: 19069 (hah)

-

Many words aren't meant to be said, and yet he had said them with such determination and such confidence that the world shook and his own walls crumbled in on him. It was a sight to behold, watching a grown man crack and break like a porcelain doll when his skin was made of thick gold, and his irises dripped in crusted honey.

Time wasn't real, not to him at least, and days passed like minutes as did songs in seconds. Painful, it was, watching time pass like leaves in the wind.

The leaves were red that day. As Johnny had remembered, he'd last saw them green. Red, yellow, orange, brown—new colours swirled around him like butterflies, or birds, or whatever winged creature that was left lurking in the valleys of the perfect city of Norma. It was all blurred, and he was numb, and that was where he'd said those words.

"I don't care."

And as he did, the world fell, and shook, and crumbled, because in reality, the nine-lettered-sequence of words held meaning that differed with each blooming season. He breathed, and so did the leaves, but his lungs remained intact and his heart remained warm, because "I don't care" could feel as good as the warm summer sun on a cool July evening.

The leaves were green today, and now he didn't have an excuse as to why he couldn't attend the fourth get-together his friends held this month. He told himself he cared, but in reality, he couldn't find himself mustering even a gram of courage and effort into doing so. 

Johnny wasn't entirely careless, no. He, in fact, was only the biggest man with the biggest heart to match. His smile was as warm as summer, and his words were as coaxing and reassuring as a messy bed, still drunk in the warmth of sleep. Johnny was comfort, but comfort itself needed to stem from a place of negativity. Flowers often broke at the stem.

He drank it all in.

Johnny danced partner-less and alone. His waltz felt as empty as his heart did on the day he had said those words. The waltz, composed of orange, red, and yellow notes, rang thick in the thicker humidity of July. Maybe he just didn't understand the waltz's warm tones in the presence of such a suffocating atmosphere, but his footsteps did not falter as he chasséd from measure to measure.

The waltz was sung in sorrow, but not with the same sharp elegance as the waltzes of winter were. It wasn't the same, but he couldn't help it. He wasn't the composer. He was merely the dancer, a string-less puppet withering alone on the cold, tiled floor. 

Days passed like songs, but they didn't fade away like the pop ballads of the 80's. Days passed like classical pieces, each hour self-composing a new movement to the piece. Johnny was stuck in the overture.

Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Johnny listened sullenly to the customer's order. His hands worked without any thought as they jotted down the order and the name of the customer. A talent, others would call it, being able to complete back-breaking tasks while under the influence of sleep. Johnny called it luck and paranoia.

The cafe's bleak walls seeped into the cup of coffee and pooled into its deep brown pigment, leaving it swimming in thick streaks of creams and whites. The coffee became less incongruous after it had been mixed, turning the entire beverage a deep, almost-blonde colour. There was a dearth of creativity and brightness in the drink, but it brought certain serenity and peace to the calamity that the pale yellows and blues of the ceramic mugs caused.

Everything seemed to blend together, contemporary art forming in the blink of an eye, never ceasing, always spiraling, spiraling, spiraling, until it was no longer mundane and until the strong scent of bitter coffee grounds turned into nothing more than a fragrance of commonly known nostalgia. Don't be fooled, no, for this was a mere breath of relief—an outlier between city smells and thick, dew-stained grass.

It was eleven in the morning on a Saturday. The cafe wasn't exactly brimming with commerce.

The day was rather mundane, forced into uniformity by the static grey sky, the one that constantly threatened to spit rain across the city. Every oncoming day felt the same as the gloomy skies of July clouded over the bright summer sun. If Johnny was a plant, he'd be dead by now, over-watered and malnourished. That's what he thought to himself after every walk to work.

Annoyed with the mediocrity, Johnny resorted to butchering every single name he would come across. In thick black sharpie, he had turned 'Jessica' into 'Djesycka' and 'Mark' into 'Marque'. There would always be a minuscule reaction that followed, such as an awkward laugh or an exasperated sigh of:

"Really? Do you think this is funny?"

And oh God, how Johnny found it funny. "Was there a misunderstanding, ma'am?"

It often ended there, each reaction slightly different but not different enough for Johnny to leach entertainment from. Johnny's temporary smile would melt into the same flat line as before, and the flame of his amusement would die out. And he continued with it still. He did it with any person he found amusing. He tested them, like baiting a bear with a piece of red meat.

Dull and invariable faces mixed together like coffee—some shy, some bold, some tired, some rude. Boring. It was when a boy, not much shorter than Johnny himself, walked up to the counter, bruises and cuts embroidering his youthful, boyish features, did his boredom seem to mitigate. Exposition.

Johnny took in each feature, a hobby he had found himself acquiring and yet another way to cope with the ennui. Behind thin-rimmed glasses sat sharp eyes—alluring, deep, and nudging cartoonishly towards a troubled past. His nose, thin, well-sculpted, held cuts and bruising that, even to someone as apprehensive in medical studies as Johnny, seemed fresh and painful. Johnny smirked. He played. This was his own story to write.

"Good morning, sir. Can I take your order?" Johnny propped the palms of his hands against the counter, his teeth biting back his bottom lip with mock-sincerity.

"Uh—" There was a pause to his words. "Medium iced coffee with caramel, please. Oh! And almond milk. Sorry, do you guys serve that?"

The flame of amusement grew in his chest, scorching his throat with a small _hmph_ of surprise. The voice coming from this man was rough and accented, each 'd' and 't' and 'a' coming out flat and sharp—accidentals. It was panicked, nervous, but it wasn't shy. Johnny smiled. A _C_ note rang happily through the room.

"Sure. And could I get a name with that?"

"Jaehyun."

"Jaehyun? Alright, thank you!"

As Johnny prepared the drink, there was a breeze of worry that ran through his bones, but one that was more foolish and childish than that of college exams or anxiety. Based on how the boy ordered, there was no telling if he would even react to the misspelling at all. Concentration.

"Juhyang? That's..."

"That's what?" Johnny asked, his voice molding the shape of concern.

"That's an odd way to spell my name."

"Is it?"

Johnny read people, made stories—more often than not, they were more augmented than their real lives were. Two halves of his mind clashed, dissented—one side creativity and the other, reasoning and intelligence. In complete honesty, both sides were on the margin of having a full-on World War—a chemical, theoretical, hypothetical warfare.

Jaehyun carried his own story. Each contrasting detail was etched deep in his cheeks and eyes. He was beaten, but his knuckles were bruised. He was an aggressor, but his stance was timid.

It wasn't often Johnny would take interest in a customer. It wasn't often Johnny would take interest in anything at all. After the day, the fall, the break, all he could do was let go. But he couldn't let go now—his heart an archer, digging its wingéd arrows into Jaehyun's chest. He anchored down his legs with a simple gaze, and once he did, he smiled. He smiled. He beckoned. He laughed.

"Have a good day, sir."

Then he let go.

-

"I don't care."

"Just choose one, bro. It really should not be this hard," Mark sighed out, his fingers hovering over the order button.

"Just order cheese or some shit."

"Cheese? You're disgusting," Mark remarked, his nose wrinkling as he punched in the order.

"Wait, no. Pineapple and cheese," Johnny added, adjusting his head on the couch pillow.

"You are too destructive, man. I swear on God."

"Pineapple and sardines."

"Stop. Stop, oh my god. Oh my god! I will throw you out."

"No cheese. At all."

"I will leave my own home, Johnny. Your pizza privileges are revoked."

Johnny laughed, head rolling to look at Mark. "I invented pizza privileges. You can't take away God's power."

"I'll take God's power and shove it up his ass," Mark cursed back. "You're gonna deal with veggie pizza."

"Veggie? Gross, dude. I'd rather have cheese-less sardine-pineapple pizza," Johnny scoffed and sat up, trying to grab the phone from Mark.

"Nope!" Mark slapped Johnny's eager hands away, tapping quickly at the order button before the taller could mess anything up. "Veggie. Veggie. Veggie. Extra onions or something like that. Bet you're a freak who likes onions, never mind."

Johnny frowned, pushing his lips out into a pout. "I will never come over, like ever again."

"Not like you ever do," Mark quipped, but Johnny sat silent, a static expression glazing over his mischievous smile and painting it white. The younger looked up, eyes studying the silent man, then turning away. "Pfft. Good riddance anyway. I don't need you stealing my college food stash. Been saving that up for next year."

"I don't steal your food!" Johnny gasped, pushing Mark to the floor with his foot in dismay. "I am a hardworking member of society. I can fend for myself."

"Right." Mark climbed from the floor, loose limbs straightening. Johnny could hear the way the carpet ripped from his jeans and the way the carpet then hissed in rearrangement. "Well, hardworking member of society, you're paying for pizza."

"I find a job once, and suddenly I'm rich."

"You find a job once, and suddenly you're a hardworking member of society."

"I will dislocate both kneecaps. Both."

"Don't injure your back kneeling, old man."

"I swear to God, Mark. I'm going to send you to the next sardine-cheese-pineapple-whatever dimension."

"How about you just choose the damn movie, asscheek?" Mark threatened, walking towards the kitchen. To the sound of brisk clanging Johnny leaned back in the scuffed-up brown couch and looked to the ceiling. What movie would they watch?

What movie they would watch was not on his mind. A simple second without a distraction made his mind conform to another wave of depression, his own warm skin enveloping his body.

Johnny felt his legs sink into the overused couch cushions. A paper-thin thought slipped into his mind, but he deemed the concept of a couch swallowing someone whole improbable. Despite its probability, Johnny couldn't help but feed the void growing in his chest with blank, self-deprecating thoughts that slipped from his brain straight to his stomach. He didn't care anymore, and he hated that. He used distractions to take him away from the all-consuming black hole that he had let into his system.

"Yo. I got the sippies, and I got the monchies." Mark entered the living room once again.

Johnny stared at him, straining his eyes because he decided he was too tired to move his head upright. He looked him over, milliseconds passing like minutes. He wanted to apologize. Again. He wanted to remind Mark that he indeed was sorry for everything he'd said and done. He wanted to paint the image of care and liveliness again. His heart raced at the idea.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" Mark asked, setting the paper plates onto the low coffee table.

"Nothing." Johnny shook his head, embarrassment burning his cheeks hot. He sat up.

"What?" Mark sounded even more perplexed.

"Nothing. You're gay."

"I would like, laugh, but I am genuinely so confused right now."

"Let's watch _Spirited Away_."

"Again?"

"Again." Johnny punctuated his sentence by pulling Mark into the seat next to him by the neck of his shirt.

-

Johnny saw Jaehyun again the following week.

Johnny, as a plant, was now brown, dead, and droopy as the weather cleared and the sun came out once more.

Johnny wondered how he remembered Jaehyun's name.

Today, Jaehyun was not alone. Perhaps he was with a friend or a school buddy. Perhaps he was with the man that left the scars and bruises on his cheeks.

Perhaps it was Jaehyun's nationality that made Johnny remember him more. The Korean name mixed with a slight accent was a dead giveaway to Johnny, but it wasn't like Jaehyun was the first. Norma didn't have two specific Korean men lurking and terrorizing the streets. In fact, there were many. Johnny felt the ghostly buzz of the 'asiEND me' groupchat from college against his leg.

Perhaps it was Jaehyun's features. Johnny remembered the scarring on his arms and his face. He remembered the fresh cuts and purpling bruises on his cheeks and lips. Johnny deemed that the most realistic reason. Johnny deemed that the _only_ reason he was now studying the cuts that were starting to heal pink on his face, and, you know, the bruises that were healing yellow on his arms and eye.

To put it simply, Johnny remembered Jaehyun better than he remembered his other customers. Jaehyun poked and prodded at the sulci of his brain.

Hell, perhaps Johnny simply found him attractive, alluring, and every other word synonymous to 'HOT' that started with an 'A'.

"Homie?" Johnny's head snapped back—more so _drifted_ back into position. He wasn't that far gone, he was just dramatic. He stared back at his coworker, brain completely crispy and fried. Mm.

"Am awake. Reporting for duty." Johnny stood straight, his elbow hitting the edge of the counter. He winced.

Johnny grimaced when his coworker gave him a blank stare and turned back to the two orders that had rolled in a minute or ten ago. So kill him. He wanted a laugh.

With an exasperated sigh—which was far more exasperated than he intended—he returned back to the front desk and waited, waited to hear the chiming of the shitty and creaky bell that was set atop the cafe door. Why couldn't he have worked at a Starbucks or something? There's more drama at Starbucks—more customers. He decided he needed a little bit of drama in his life again when his eyes drifted and locked onto Jaehyun once more.

It wasn't _creepy_ staring, per se, more like 'hey, I'm zoning out right now, and I'm not _looking_ at you, you just happen to be in my line of sight' kind of staring, but add in 'I am totally staring at you right now, I'm just good at hiding it'.

Yeah, yeah. He came to the conclusion pretty soon.

He was bored again.

Numbing a dark side of your mind in order to keep yourself edged away from the brink also made everything a lot more _boring_. Too much time to do _stuff!_

It was a Wednesday afternoon. The only people in the cafe were those who were busy typing away at their laptops or taking part in boring conversations. Johnny looked to his coworker. _Boring._ God! Haha, God.

Realistically, he only had to stare at Jaehyun for thirty-some minutes until he's free to go home, which, to him, didn't sound _that_ bad. The ticking of the clock suddenly became painfully loud in his ears.

"Heeey," Johnny stretched out the greeting as he turned to his coworker, trying to not make it obvious that he was squinting at his name tag. "John."

"Jake."

"Jake! Jake, what's good?" Johnny laughed off his mistake and leaned against the counter.

"Uhm." His coworker eyed Johnny suspiciously, and from there Johnny knew he wouldn't get much of a reaction from _Jake_. "What?"

"Jake, we should hang out sometime. You know, you and me." Johnny took to cleaning the front desk.

"Ha—I'm sorry, like hang out?" Jake—hng—replied with an innocent and confused voice.

"Yeah! Yeah, like hang out as friends. Would love to get to know you better." Johnny pursed his lips and faced Jake with his back pressing against the counter.

Jake stood silent for a hot minute, face blank as if he were a slow 2000's computer trying to process what the fuck www.pronhub.com was. "Wait, like _go on a date_?" He said the last part in a whisper as to not attract the attention of—well the sum of like the 5 people that still resided in the cafe.

"What? Dude, no." Johhny's face twisted into a look of both surprise—raised eyebrows and all—and disgust (not the phobic kind, just, like, the ??? kind).

"Ah, sorry...uh." Johnny turned his head to—ah...they weren't exactly words—from behind the front counter and smiled on reflex.

"Hi!" Johnny exclaimed. Sue him.

"Hi, uh..." Jaehyun pulled his cheeks into an awkward, straight smile. "I was wondering if I could get another white chocolate iced mocha."

He was just a basic bitch after all. Johnny swooned.

"Yes! Of course. Almond milk?" Johnny teased, quirking his lips into a half-smile.

"Ha. Yeah." Flat.

HhnngGHngngnngjjfnfffnfnfnhnnnnnggngnnfngngnnngJohnny didn't like that.

He turned back to make the drink, thinking about how white chocolate + mocha + almond milk could possibly taste good. Fuck Jaehyun.

"Here you go! Anything else?" Johnny set the drink down tightly. Grr.

"Ah, yeah. Could I get your number?"

In the future, somewhere in bed, Johnny was cringing and gagging out how bad this was, but current Johnny (hi!) was just standing there, same stupid customer service smile on his face, speechless.

"Haha, we don't have those here. Can I get you something else?"

"Oh, sorry." Jaehyun pursed his lips and placed his hand on the drink. "I heard you talking about dating and thought you were...you know...into guys. Sorry, haha."

No!!!! NO!!!! Johnny placed his hand on top of Jaehyun's, feeling the small bolt of electricity running through him at the skin on skin contact (although it was probably just static electricity ((in humid July? Maybe not.))). "Wait, no, sorry. I am into guys. Hi."

Jaehyun gave a worried smile and forcefully pulled his hand and drink away to his side. "Uh, okay. Yeah, that'd be all."

Johnny watched blankly as Jaehyun placed the required (he thought) amount onto the counter and left to meet the friend waiting by the door. The last thing Johnny heard was his friend chuckle and say "Hi, Jughoyng."

Johnny closed his eyes and might have bashed his head into the front counter. What the fuck?????!!! Reluctantly, Johnny rolled his head to look at his coworker but instead saw his back and his apron tied messily against it.

"Shift's over, babe." Johnny groaned and lifted his head, feeling relief trickle over his previous state of shock and despair.

"Thanks, Livs," Johnny clicked his tongue and shot finger guns towards his coworker, quickly taking to untying his apron.

"Yeah, never call me 'Livs' ever again," Olivia deadpanned and walked to the backroom to set her belongings down. Johnny needed to go there to retrieve his belongings but decided against it.

"Yep! Got it."

-

It was the second week of August when Johnny saw Jaehyun again. For the first time, it wasn't at the cafe. Johnny almost felt betrayed as he eyed the Starbucks cup sitting beside Jaehyun on top of his table.

The campus library was filled with quick chatter from all sides, busy students entertaining their professors by browsing textbooks and research novels. Johnny himself was taking a break from college but used Mark's ID to get him past any library staff and to check out books to, perhaps, motivate him into applying again. Seeing other people be happy and successful did not motivate him as he thought it would.

Working at a cafe on campus was not Johnny's dream. It was not Johnny's mom's dream. It was not Johnny's dad's dream. It was no one's dream. Johnny might not have been learning much about biochemistry from making the same few drinks over and over again until his shift ended, but he could tell you the perfect ratio of cream to coffee you can possibly achieve from a medium roast and he lived by that.

Realistically, Johnny could not think about biochemistry at all. His affinity in math and it's minor relevance in his career was perhaps the only time he had even touched science or math in the past year. Who could blame him?

Johnny's vision blurred and distorted the laminated text of his _Human Molecular and Cellular Biology_ textbook he had bought the year before when he planned to continue his fourth year of college. Johnny sat defeated.

It was the second week of August when Johnny saw Jaehyun again.

Johnny wondered what Jaehyun could possibly have majored in.

It wasn't a surprise to him that Jaehyun went to Illinois State, mostly because of his frequently infrequent visits to the corner cafe, adjacent to the strip mall of education buildings and book and stationery stores (but his abundant amount of 'ILLINOIS STATE' sweatshirts gave it away too). Johnny was more disappointed in himself because he remembered Jaehyun and his stupid, beat-up face after nearly a month.

Jaehyun uncharacteristically and inappropriately wore a long sweatshirt and jeans which would have looked insane on any other person besides Jaehyun, especially during the unbearable humidity of mid-August. In his head, Johnny made up that Jaehyun wore it to cover up his violent bruising while in a school building. Truthfully, Jaehyun might have just been weak to the powerful gust of AC that traveled through the spacious library. Truthfully, Jaehyun might just be alien.

Johnny wondered about what Jaehyun would even order at Starbucks.

Johnny wanted Jaehyun's attention.

Closing his textbook and shoving it back in his backpack, Johnny meandered aimlessly towards the section of books behind Jaehyun's table. Johnny first wondered what he could reap benefit from in the literary art's section as a biochem major, then figured it wouldn't matter.

(It didn't truly hit him until he was out of the library that Jaehyun could have been a literary arts or theater major. Johnny gagged.)

"Ah! Yes. I do love me some...Hamelette." Although he was thinking it and laughed to himself while doing so, he did not say it out loud and instead took to skimming the spines of books. Funky!

Distracted and by instinct, Johnny grabbed for his phone and texted Mark a simple 'hnrg' before realizing he actually was doing something that involved a person other than Mark or himself. His heart sped up. Johnny grabbed for a ledge on a bookshelf to keep himself steady.

 **Me** : mark makrkrmkrkr k ki am doing something with ur id

 **Me** : markawe ples come help me i think wone of ur lit arts bitches are here and i want redemtpion plesa marqqqqqwe

_Sent, 14:39_

Johnny looked over the shelves and saw the back of Jaehyun's head, his hair a soft, silky brown. Fucker. Bet it was dyed.

 **Me** : MARK MAEK PLEAS I HAV UR ID AND I WILL CHECK OUT A BOK ON GAY RIGTS OR

 **Me** : PORN

 **Me** : AMRK I WILL MAKE A PURCHASE FOR LIMTED EDICTION HENTAI I WILL DO IT

 **Me** : MARQUES POR FAVOR MI AMOR MI GUAAPO AMORITO JE TAIME

Johnny pocketed his phone after seeing the same 'delivered' message for the millionth time.

Relapse time (just for a second though, and just 'cause the litol self-deprecation gremlins never rest):

Johnny knew he didn't deserve to talk to Jaehyun or anyone for that matter. His veins pulsed with utmost repulsion towards himself and his gross actions. The musty library air, smelling of old books and sticky coffee stains, clouded his mind and eyes and suddenly it was too much for Johnny. 

Most people his age were either in college or have graduated. Most people his age were working full-time jobs, but Johnny was 23 and working in an on-campus cafe at a school he dropped out of.

The rough, scratchy run of his jeans felt like knives against his legs. His heart jumped with every single brush of fabric. Every time his t-shirt's sleeves rubbed against his arms, he cringed. Johnny found it hard to breathe.

He didn't deserve anything. He didn't deserve the unconditional love he got from his friends. He didn't deserve to be in the shoes he was now. He didn't deserve to be alive, but at this point there were too many things he'd done that could not be undone. He didn't deserve the final release of death. He would never be able to repay those who had lost anything because of him. He would never be able to repay anyone for looking at him. He felt awful remembering that people had to look at his miserable, sopping form every day. He had to repay them, give them everything they wanted and more.

Suddenly, the leaves were red again No they weren't! They were not red again.

Johnny blinked his eyes open again after realizing he'd zoned out again. The angry buzzing and chiming against his leg slowly faded back in and sent him into a panic after his ears cleared out, and he realized it was one of the only and loudest sounds in the library. Quickly and with clammy fingers, he rushed to turn off his ringer. Karma.

Before checking his messages, Johnny looked up to impress an apologetic and cringing expression onto his face to the people around him. That's when he met Jaehyun's eyes. His heart leaped in surprise, so hard that he almost instinctively reached up to grasp at it to soothe the dull and numbing pain.

When Jaehyun turned back to his table, head tipping back in an illustrated laugh, Johnny breathed.

 **Free Real Estate <3**: what

 **Free Real Estate <3**: johnny omfg what d o you want

 **Free Real Estate <3**: i am literally tutoring rn wtf stfu

 **Free Real Estate <3**: dude?

 **Free Real Estate <3**: dude

 **Free Real Estate <3**: johnny

 **Free Real Estate <3**: johnny

 **Free Real Estate <3**: johnny

_Today, 14:46_

**Free Real Estate <3**: johnny i'll pummel you

 **Free Real Estate <3**: BRUH

 **Free Real Estate <3**: nah go fuck yourself

_Today, 14:54_

**Me** : WAIT hi king sorryh i wa

 **Me** : ok can u meet me leater today i need to project and also cry and maybe be the +1 to one of ur lit art parties bc i need weed and metaphorical fuck

 **Me** : thank u king ily

_Read, 14:55_

Fuck.

-

Johnny knew he shouldn't be at the party he knew Jaehyun would be at. Slowly, like the first blooming buds of spring, his infatuation with Jaehyun flourished and grew into nothing short of an obsession.

Every time he turned his head and his eyes, blinded by the sting of distant strobe lights, caught on even the smallest blur of brown, his heartbeat jarred itself into a syncopated rhythm steadied only by compound meter and the smothering disappointment he felt when the head turned to reveal another faceless person.

Johnny stared into the last drops of makeshift panaché in his solo cup. The yellow contorted into purple and grey with each quarter note—eighth! Sixteenth!—of the song that was playing now. Johnny then remembered another reason why he was upset.

Do you want another, Johnny heard Mark ask.

"You told me this would be a regular lit party. Sit in a circle, smoke, drink, fuck type beat." While Johnny hoped to drive his disappointment into his words though it was drowned out by the overwhelming need to yell over the crying bass.

Johnny knew it wasn't Mark's fault and that it was totally up to only himself to leave the party if he so wished to. To be frank, he just wanted to complain. He didn't want to be happy, nor did he want to voice his own fault or control over the situation.

He put so much effort into uttering the complaint. He could feel the exertion on his tongue. He could feel its placement and discomfort on the roof of his mouth from ripping the words from his throat. He could feel the dull grind of his molars scraping together. His jaw felt numb.

And yet, he strained more to listen to what Mark had to say. He watched for his reaction.

"Hey! I thought it was gonna be like that too." Mark shouted over the music, but his voice was aimed in another direction. "Figures, dude. It's the first party of the school year. Can't do much about school spirit."

Mark threw Johnny a half-assed smile and glanced down to his phone.

Of course, Johnny could have known that for himself. Johnny _did_ know that for himself. Johnny wanted to feed his social energy into someone who was already sated.

"Whatever. Do you wanna gather up your friends and we can smoke one?" Johnny shouted.

"What?"

"Do you want to gather up your friends and smoke?"

"What?!"

"Fuck," Johnny moaned to himself and grabbed Mark's shoulder to shout in his ear. "Weed! Smoke! Friend get!"

Mark winced but gave him an okay sign and nodded.

Johnny couldn't remember a single word of what he said. He felt the cold air wrap around the space that Mark filled. He wondered why he felt so alone.

Music pulsed through his body. Every time he closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of sweat and the sting of alcohol in the air, he could almost see himself in a club. This was someone's house. Johnny bumped into the coffee table.

His eyes caught back on Mark's face as he walked back to him with a small packet, illuminated a mute purple from the light.

"Take this! Meet us upstairs, we'll be a minute!" Mark pushed the packet into Johnny's chest and turned back. Johnny could feel the mute, clogged strain of Mark's throat.

Confused, Johnny took the packet and shoved it into the endless pocket of his jeans before starting on his journey to complete Mark's side-quest. Finally, pushing past the shoulders and chests of men and women that crowded the walls like bugs, he came across the stairs, which too were littered with beer cans and men. Trash!

Johnny always felt awkward going up the stairs and entering rooms that someone else slept in. While Mark said he was friends with the host, he couldn't help but feel weird as he browsed the unmarked doors and occupied rooms.

The music was muted here, finally giving Johnny the chance to breathe and recover from the trance-like state he was in earlier. After finding most rooms to be occupied or labeled (in both English AND Spanish, mind you) **DO NOT COME IN!! OFF LIMITS!** , he felt stumped and turned back to Mark for directions.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* **One Hint Used!** *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Johnny suppressed a small laugh with an exhale and a smirk.

 **Me** : marck hewo all the rooms are taken what do

After roughly five minutes of no response, Johnny began feeling anxious.

 **Free Real Estate <3**: uh one sex

 **Free Real Estate <3**: *sec lol

 **Free Real Estate <3**: he say go to th farthest door on the left

**Free Real Estate <3 is typing...**

**Free Real Estate <3**: says there gonna b a sign on it just go in and lock the oor itll be unlocked ll

 **Free Real Estate <3**: John?

 **Me** : yeths ok i am wait for u there

Johnny pocketed his phone again, conscious about his appearance in the eyes of others as he walked towards the end of the hall to the closed and marked door. Quickly, he grabbed the knob and twisted, only to find a halting resistance. His wrist cramped a little, but otherwise his heart screamed and went KLSDJFLSKCUIEIRJSDFS.

 **Me** : MARK IT LOCKD WHERE ArE U

 **Free Real Estate <3**: d

 **Free Real Estate <3**: try afgin he says it jams somethimes

 **Free Real Estate <3**: up in a min

Johnny didn't bother replying and went back to twisting until a dry crack sounded and the door gave way to passage. Quickly, he entered and shut the door behind him, being mindful of his fingers as he popped the lock shut.

The room itself was a bedroom, dressed with a bed, wardrobe, a desk, blinded windows, and a mirror. Oh! And Jaehyun.

Wait

Jaehyun's head turned towards Johnny, his eyes innocently tired and hooded as if he were just wakened from a fruitless sleep. In the midst of a crazed trace, Johnny noted that Jaehyun didn't look out of place in this soft setting, his clothed legs resting lazily and angled on the dressed bed.

Only then did Johnny's heart and brain come to the agreement that Johnny should panic. So he did!

"Hi." Jaehyun's greeting was soft and evaporated by the time in reached where Johnny was standing.

"Oh." It wasn't what Johnny intended on saying, but it fell out anyways and melted straight into the hardwood floor.

Jaehyun sat up in the bed and turned his attention awkwardly to Johnny. "What's up?"

Johnny blanked as he looked at Jaehyun. As Jaehyun shied his head and body towards him, Johnny could once again map out the cuts and bruises on his face as he did once before. They were refreshed and split open.

"Ah, uh...the sign on the door said that this room is like...restricted," Johnny said dumbly.

Johnny followed Jaehyun's eyes to the closed door Johnny stood beside. "Oh. Yeah. Why are you here?"

Johnny stared blankly at Jaehyun before awkwardly chuckling.

"Uh, the dude that like...lives here...said I could come up here with my friends."

"And where are your friends?"

Ouch.

"Oh. Yeah, they're coming," Johnny defended, shifting the weight of the world onto his other leg. "Why are you here?"

"Uh," Jaehyun paused. "It's loud?"

"Huh."

In his daydreams, Johnny was sitting by Jaehyun, holding his hand as they laugh about the dumbest things. Perhaps they were getting ice-cream and talking about the future, smiling at each other as they marveled about their perfect lives.

If Johnny reached out, he could physically grab the tension and snap it in half. His wrist twitched.

"Do you...know the host?" Johnny asked, trying to control the situation that was quickly slipping from his clammy fingers.

"No. I mean—he was in my Gender class if that counts." Jaehyun was standing now, shoulders barely slumped and his arms hanging loosely by his side. Before Johnny could keep the back-and-forth narrative going, Jaehyun spoke again. "But I mean, if no one's supposed to come in here, who's going to check if there is someone in here to begin with? You know...kind of like German dude's cat, I think."

This was the most Johnny had heard Jaehyun speak, sating his need to add the G# into his A harmonic minor scale. It also scared him. His heart crumpled into syncopated beats, itching and aching for control over the situation. _He_ was the chemist. _He_ was the composer.

"He's Austrian, I think." Stupid! Oh my god. Johnny's blood turned sour from his own pity.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The flame of the reaction fizzled out. The taste of salt left his tongue. The silence that was once taken up by the cries and squeals of burning metal curtained over the room once more.

"Uh," Johnny swallowed down his heartbeat. "Do you smoke? I have a—" he reached for his pant pocket and patted it with an open palm. "If you want."

Jaehyun straightened up wordlessly and grabbed what appeared to be his jacket from the bedpost. "Yeah. Sure."

Jaehyun was weird. Jaehyun was alien, and in the sense that he could and should not exist or be material in the way he was. But he was. As Johnny moved, his eyes trailed and followed Jaehyun as if he was moving through film. He felt so close to him, so close physically that he can reach out and instantly brush against the rough fabric of his linen overcoat.

"Wait." Jaehyun paused, halting his advance towards the door. Johnny stood dumbfounded as he motionlessly watched Jaehyun scurry around the room.

Jaehyun quickly took to throwing the pillows from the bed to the floor and messing up the perfectly laid sheets and blankets. Johnny stared in awe but was also stuck solid in confusion. Was this a raid? He's only seen these in Minecraft servers.

"Come help." Jaehyun motioned to Johnny. "Gotta make it look like we fucked."

What

"What?" Johnny asked, his legs moving towards the bed on their own accord. "Why?"

"'Cause I'm an asshole," Jaehyun answered simply. Jaehyun then proceeded to open the drawers to the bedside tables and stir his hands through its contents.

"You know what," Johnny smacked his lips together and created a divot in the sheets with his hands. "Valid."

"I know. I also hate that bitch." Jaehyun straightened up. "Yeah, that's good."

Johnny watched as Jaehyun took a half-drunken water bottle that he'd found on the bedside table and rationed its water across the center of the bed evenly.

"What'd he do?" Johnny's voice strained as he took the foot of the bed and pulled it an inch towards him.

"Ooh, that's evil." Johnny felt his heart jump and flutter. Johnny wanted to take the pathetic little thing and crush it to pieces. "He's just a bitch. Do you see how he keeps his room? I want to fuck it up, dude. Bad energy here."

Jaehyun pulled what looked like a bottle of perfume from his jacket and diffused the sickeningly sweet scent onto the damp pillowcase. Johnny swooned. He also questioned his taste in men.

"And your way of fucking it up is by, fucking it...up?" Johnny struggled to find a better way to put it. "Also, why do you carry that around? Do you actually like the smell?" He coughed. Stay safe!

Jaehyun shrugged, angling the nozzle to his neck. Johnny was also hypersensitive to any thought that involved a body part. He shivered.

"It's fine. Fruity." Jaehyun pocketed the perfume and glanced up at Johnny.

Johnny wasn't prepared for eye-holding! Eye-contact-holding...Eye..Sight-touching...He didn't like it! He quickly averted his gaze and directed it back to the bed. "Yeah, whatever, hah. Are we done?"

Johnny felt Jaehyun's eyes on him for a second longer before the cool breeze of freedom blew over him again. "I think so. You don't have a spare change of panties or anything, right?"

Okay, perhaps Jaehyun asking about Johnny's hypothetical panties was worse than eye-contact. "What? No?"

"Of course you wouldn't."

?????

"What?" Was this something he should have on him? Have times changed?

"Don't get hung up on it. I'm just kidding."

Before getting hung up on it as Jaehyun told him not to do, he first came to the realization that Jaehyun was not the person he thought he was at the cafe.

He wanted to ask how he got the cuts and bruises on his body, and more so he wanted to ask why he just now realized that understanding a person was so much more important than wanting them.

It was not there but then that he realized this.

"Stop. You're thinking about it." Jaehyun sewed his arms into the sleeves of the overcoat. Jaehyun was right. Johnny _was_ thinking about it, and other things as well. He felt like a high school kid talking to his crush for the first time, which instantly scared him and prompted the question,

"Wait, how old are you?"

"21." Jaehyun raised his eyebrows at him. Johnny noticed that one of them had a perfect slit down the edge of it from a scar. "What, did you think I'd make you look like a pedo? M'not that mean, dude."

Johnny studied the implications of what Jaehyun meant. He also realized that he'd just helped frame himself for breaking into a closed-off room and fucking a girl while waiting for Mark and his friends to come upstairs so they can smoke. Also! Two-year difference. Nice! Johnny was 20 when Jaehyun was still in high school.

"S'not like you've done anything to me, anyway." Jaehyun shrugged. "Let's go?"

Johnny wondered how different his life would have been if he'd given Jaehyun his number a month ago. How much could change in the span of a month? In one day, he managed to change the lives of almost everyone around him. How much could he have done in a month? How could he have altered the life of Jaehyun, someone so oblivious to everything around him?

"Oh." Johnny unfroze and remembered the reason Jaehyun was talking to him in the first place. "Yeah, sure."

"Do you reckon we could get out through the window? You know, like in the movies?" Jaehyun walked to the large window and pulled it open. Johnny laughed, mostly because Jaehyun used the word 'reckon', but he followed curiously to stand beside Jaehyun. He could almost feel the linen of his jacket.

"I am 6'2, dude. I don't think I'll get my neck through without breaking the window. Or my neck. Breaking my neck is worse, I think," Johnny laughed and straightened his posture when Jaehyun did the same.

Johnny's heartbeat ran up from a resting rate to what Johnny would assume was what it might be after a 10-minute run. God how he wished he had his FitBit right now to see it happen.

Jaehyun was so close, closer than he'd been when he was just ordering drinks while Johnny was behind the counter, which, he might add, was pretty close. Johnny reckoned (oh god oh Fuck) he could see from where his eyelid folded over the other and even the roots of his eyelashes. When Jaehyun opened his mouth, he could see the gleam of his canine's poking through his lips.

"Pfft," Jaehyun scoffed. "You're not even that tall." Jaehyun stood on his tippy-toes and Johnny's eyes followed. "See? Don't flatter yourself."

From a distance, Jaehyun seemed ethereal and God-like to Johnny. Up-close, Johnny could see each pore and scar and scrape and imperfection on his face like an open display, and quite frankly, it relieved him. He smiled, and for a moment all he could hear was the thumping bass of the song beneath them and chirping of summer crickets and cicadas from outside.

Fuckkkkkkk. That was so gay. That was so gay of Johnny.

A feeling of nostalgia overcame him.

"Okay, small problem." Jaehyun had fallen back to his heels and was at the window again. "There's a net thingy. Do you think you could get it off?"

Jaehyun was speaking again! Mmm...Jaehyun...

"Oh shit, uh...Why would you think I could get it off?" Johnny ducked his head under the window to see its mechanics.

"'Cause you're probably like, thirty. You have a house and kids, right? You've done this," Jaehyun said nonchalantly.

Johnny was going to strangle him.

"You would take weed from a thirty-year-old?" Johnny's voice strained as he turned his neck and shook the window frame.

"Duh." Johnny could hear Jaehyun scoff. "I'd take free weed from anyone. I don't discriminate."

Johnny knew he should feel offended or even in some way used, but all he could focus on was Wow, while Jaehyun was definitely a foreigner, he used big words and didn't have trouble saying them! Johnny also remembered that Jaehyun was a (pending) literary arts major, or so he assumed.

With a rattle and satisfying crack (maybe not so satisfying knowing plastic + cracking sound usually meant he broke something), the window screen finally gave in and came off.

"Hey!" Johnny pulled back, mouth open in surprise and pride. "I did it! I got it!"

"Nice," Jaehyun laughed out beside him. "So how are we going to do this?"

Johnny paused and looked back out of the window. "Hm. Well, I guess you'd sit on the ledge first then kind of...climb to the edge of the roof and..." Johnny stuck his neck out of the window. "You'd fall."

"Yeah?" Jaehyun followed suit and looked down. "Shit, yeah. Okay."

"I'll help you down." Johnny pulled away and stepped back to let Jaehyun sit.

"A—alright. Okay." Johnny nearly jumped when he felt Jaehyun's fingers wrap around his forearm as he started to slide down the shingles of the roof. "If you let go I'll destroy your weed."

"Got it." Johnny had to hold everything in from stuttering like a mix between an incel and a pubescent boy.

Jaehyun started to slowly inch down the side of the roof, his grip pulling Johnny closer to the window. That was until Jaehyun stopped completely at the edge and froze. Johnny couldn't see Jaehyun's face behind the curtain of hair that covered the top hard of it.

"Wait. Pull me back up." Jaehyun turned his head slightly and pulled on Johnny's arm until he reached around the grab it with the other hand. "Please. This was a bad idea. Shit idea. There's like, a glass table down there. Dude, please please please ple—"

"Dude if I fall, you'll fall! Stop pulling me!" Johnny exclaimed, rushing to give Jaehyun his other hand. When Jaehyun shakily grabbed onto Johnny's hands with his, Johnny started pulling Jaehyun back up.

Mm..Jaehyun's hands..so warm...hrgngnrngg..

God, Jaehyun was a big dude.

"So fucking heavy, dude. You got a fucking weight in your pockets or something?" Johnny grunted as he pulled a struggling Jaehyun back to the window sill and through.

"Calling me fat, bro?" It sounded kind of place when Jaehyun was so winded and breathing heavy kneeling on the floor.

"Bad idea?"

"Bad idea. Let's just take the stairs." Jaehyun said in defeat. Johnny instinctively gave Jaehyun his hand so he could pull himself off the floor.

Eeeee!! Hand-holding so soon! Johnny was giddy.

Johnny wanted to make fun of Jaehyun so badly as they walked down the once again crowded stairs, but Jaehyun was still holding his hand and leading him through the crowd, and Johnny's mind was completely void of any thoughts that don't have to do with Jaehyun's fingers or Jaehyun's skin.

Once they were out, Johnny felt all too quickly the departure of Jaehyun's hand and began to wonder if it was always like that. Was his skin always so cold and was he always so hyper-aware of when people let go of his hand?

"Freaky, dude. Do you have a car?" Jaehyun asked, fixing his already-fucking-perfect hair.

"Uh..." Johnny pursed his lips. "Nooo. I carpooled. I mean! I do have a car, like, duh...but..."

"Where do we even go then?" Jaehyun huffed, and Johnny thought it was perhaps the cutest and most out-of-place thing Jaehyun had ever done.

"I saw like a playground on our way here, I think. It was just a little—" Johnny motioned with his hands. "—out that way. 10-minute walk. Tops."

"Shit, let's get some kids second-hand high!" Jaehyun exclaimed sarcastically.

"Oh, I didn't think of that," Johnny hissed and shoved his hands into his endless pockets, getting a subtle reminder that Yes! Borrowed weed still there. Anything for Jaehyun.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll wipe down the surfaces after," Jaehyun offered, looping his arm into Johnny's and pulling it out from within his pockets. Johnny hated being hyper-aware of Jaehyun every single time he touched him.

"Is—I don't think that's how weed...particle works. But sure. Yes. Yeah. Let's do it." Johnny's brain was an egg, and it was a very toasty and mushy egg.

But the walk was awkward. Johnny's brain scrambled for things to say. There was nothing to interact with that Johnny could possibly bring up, and Jaehyun didn't seem too keen on starting up a conversation either.

Johnny looked up to ask if, mayhaps, Jaehyun was cold! But Jaehyun was wearing a turtleneck and a linen overcoat and long pants and who the fuck? wears that to a party of this scale? Johnny sighed.

"What?" Jaehyun looked up at him.

Johnny froze, not realizing that a sigh would be heard, even though it was probably the loudest sound around them.

"Nothing—uh—I was just thinking," Johnny chuckled awkwardly. Great! Good. Make Jaehyun think your head was full of good, smart thoughts.

"What're you thinking about?" Jaehyun asked in the dreamiest way he possibly could.

Johnny looked up to look at him again, only shying away when he found Jaehyun looking back at him. "Just...stuff. School stuff. What are you majoring in?"

"Me?" Jaehyun questioned as if Johnny could have asked about anyone else. "English. Funny, right?"

He panicked, not knowing if it was appropriate to chuckle or not. Fucking English majors.

"I want to teach English back at home," Jaehyun continued. "And if I don't get a chance to go back, I'll just get an HR job or something."

Johnny laughed. "You say that like it's easy."

"I'll work for it, man. I'll work for it."

"Oh."

Oh. Many thoughts.

Johnny didn't know whether to feel guilty for discrediting Jaehyun's hard work or if he should just get down his knee and propose to Jaehyun now before some perfect woman came along and stole him away.

"How come you don't think you'll get a chance to go home?" Johnny asked, before cutting in again, "That is, if you're comfortable answering."

To Johnny, Jaehyun's laugh was simply angelic—so deep and masculine, yet light and airy like the seeds on a dandelion. Johnny should be the English major. That was straight poetry. And very gay.

Jaehyun's smile was like a seed, splitting open to root his sharp canines into Johnny's neck. Jaehyun's smile was round, yet broad. 

"It's kind of complicated. I was supposed to go back after my four years, but I realized plane tickets are kind of expensive and if I was going to be going back and forth for a few years anyway, I might as well stay and save up before starting a half-assed career back in Korea."

"You've," Johnny panicked and counted on his fingers. "You've only been here for like, two years? What? No way your English is that good. You're like, a God, dude! Holy shit!"

Jaehyun laughed again. "Nah, dude. I lived in Canada for a few years before coming here to study. Why do you think going back to Korea is such a big deal if I had family there? I don't. That's the problem."

"Shit. Sorry." Johnny sucked in a breath. "That's tough, dude. I didn't know."

"Pfft," Jaehyun scoffed and pushed him a bit (maybe too much because Johnny nearly stumbled right into the roof of a car). "Of course you didn't know. This is like our first time talking."

And there it was. The thing Johnny didn't want to address. Their brief history.

Johnny was so encapsulated by forming some fake, fucked up story for Jaehyun that it'd seemed like he'd known him so well, almost as if they've known each other for years. Seeing him again at this party almost seemed like a memory like he was greeting an old friend. Maybe, just maybe, things were more augmented in his head. Maybe.

"Oh! Is that it? Finally!" The Jaehyun that was by his side the moment before was running in front of him to the red dinosaur-themed playground Johnny had seen on his way to the party.

Quite frankly, Johnny was happy he got out of the unsettling atmosphere they'd been in before. He looked up to find Jaehyun's eyes once again, his back turned to the playground as he stood on the plastic border separating mulch from cement.

"You're so slow."

There was a part of Johnny that was grateful for him because Jaehyun didn't leave room for it to ever get too awkward between them. He was blunt but soft, almost as if he shied away from anything he claimed but never killed it. Johnny remembered his impressions at the cafe and wondered if he could ever have imagined Jaehyun like this.

Jaehyun's smile was wide and bashful. He noticed that no matter what kind of smile he smiled, it always reached his eyes as if his cheeks were directly connected to them. His smile reminded him of a cool evening in October.

Maybe, just maybe, Johnny could remember him under a warmer light than he had previously. Maybe the leaves were red for a reason, and that reason was to welcome Johnny in the humid embrace of goodbye.

Not all things lasted forever, and that's what made them valuable. Relationships, whether formal, romantic, or platonic, ran through and by like songs, unskippable no matter how annoying or tedious they were.

No matter the day, the week, the month, the year, the lifetime, everything would pass. No second could be treasured because the time you spend thinking about it will lead to the loss of others.

Johnny was stuck in the past. The second his eyelids blanketed over his eyes, they left him blind and vulnerable to any memories he'd tried to bury beneath other sights. His worst enemy was his own mind, but was he the only one? Was he not one of the billions fighting past their own thoughts, their own actions, and their own ideas? He was. He was never alone.

He tasted salt on his tongue again.

Johnny smiled back at Jaehyun, picking up his feet into a half-assed jog towards the playground.

"Aw, fuck! There's only one swing," Jaehyun whined, and Johnny's heart, on cue, screamed in agony. "We'll take turns."

"Rock, paper, scissors for who goes first?" Johnny offered and raised his closed fist.

"Rock! Paper! Scissors—wait! I wasn't ready let's go again." Johnny laughed and pulled back when Jaehyun's fingers formed scissors when Johnny's formed rock.

"I dunno dude, seems kinda fake." Johnny shrugged, retracting his hand.

"No! I swear! I just froze up." Jaehyun quickly grabbed Johnny's wrist, something Johnny _still_ wasn't used to and feared would cause him to have a heart attack. "Please? If I fuck up on this one then no more."

Johnny eyed him warily as if he wasn't already ready to drop down on his knees to kiss Jaehyun's shoes and worship him like a god. "Fine, but you have to roll. I don't want weed fingers."

"Yes!" Jaehyun cheered. Johnny didn't even want the fucking swing. Johnny would build him a swing. Fuck, Johnny would become a swing! He chose to ignore any implications that offered.

"Rock! Paper! Scissors—fuck! Whatever, take your fucking swing. I get motion-sick anyways."

Jaehyun ended up on the swing still, hunched over and carefully rolling the paper around a copious amount of weed.

Johnny watched, carefully, as if inspecting Jaehyun's work on not-Johnny's-weed, but in reality, he was just taking in the expression Jaehyun made when he was focused. Chin tucked into his neck, lips parted with his bottom lip slightly out, eyebrows furrowed as if looking down strained his eyes—Johnny felt like an art student inspecting his reference image (is that what art majors did? He didn't know).

"Are you fine with me, you know..." Jaehyun looked up and pointed at his tongue.

It took Johnny a moment to process that Jaehyun was saying something, which probably ruined the image that Johnny was just being quality control and not checking him out. It took even longer to process that Jaehyun was saying something when the first thing Johnny saw when he looked up was the small metal ball pierced through the middle of Jaehyun's tongue.

"Wh—yeah. That's fine," Johnny muttered out, eyes fixated on Jaehyun as he ran his tongue along the rolling paper to seal it as best as he could. Fuck morals! Fuck being a gentleman! Fuck not being creepy!

Jaehyun looked up and passed the joint to Johnny for him to light. Johnny couldn't help himself.

"Does it hurt?" Johnny asked, digging around in his pockets to fish out a dollar-store lighter.

Jaehyun seemed to know what Johnny was talking about (which in hindsight made Johnny cringe. Like a lot).

"Eh." Jaehyun shrugged. "It did when I first got it, but it's fine now. Feels weird when someone touches it though."

someone

SOMEONE!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Johnny took a long drag of the cigarette and stared at the ground, desperately trying to not imagine Jaehyun making out with someone.

"Ho—" Johnny sputtered and coughed out the smoke. "How long ago did you get it?"

"Hmm." Jaehyun took the joint from between Johnny's fingers. "About a year ago. I had to get it in America so my parents wouldn't find out. TMI: it got infected so bad during the third week of healing because I was stupid and decided to go to a party to fuck around. Apparently other people's saliva is pretty bad for healing. Also, hurt like a bitch. Weirdest kiss I've ever had."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Jaehyun! Jaehyun kissing someone! Jaehuhn.HHrggbgbbnnnghgghgg

"Is it healed now?" Johnny joked, trying to swat away any lingering thoughts.

"What, planning to kiss me?" Jaehyun asked, taking another quick drag before laughing out whatever he let in.

Johnny choked, failing to _not_ imagine kissing Jaehyun. On the mouth! Right on the mouth! Wow. Johnny hadn't even thought of that. "No! Nothing like that, just sounds painful."

Jaehyun stared at him for a bit, eyes trailing over his pitiful form before passing off the joint back to him. "Offer's still on the table. You _did_ make me leave the party."

Miraculously, Johnny ignored _everything_ that Jaehyun just said to rebut, "Hey! You were literally locked up in a room _away_ from the action, and you're complaining about it? I got you free weed, dude! You can't blame me for you not getting ass. Weed over ass, man. Shame on you."

"But you were so persuasive!" Jaehyun whined. Whined! Whined again, as if Johnny's mind wasn't already a live wire and running all over the place. "How can I say no to a middle-aged man offering me free escapism?"

Johnny could tell Jaehyun was a light-weight. Either that, or he's suddenly opened up an alternate and whiny persona that Johnny could never have imagined.

"I'm literally 23! Stop calling me middle-aged!" Jaehyun was laughing and so Johnny couldn't help but start too.

"What do you major in, then?" Jaehyun pushed the swing back and kicked off.

For a second, Johnny forgot about his whole situation and answered as if he was 21 again, making his parents proud. "Biochem."

"Ooo. So you're good at chemistry _and_ biology?" Jaehyun slowed down, scraping his (what Johnny believed were) nice shoes against the mulch.

Johnny could feel his cheeks warm up, something that A) never happens and B) shouldn't be able to happen because of how cold it suddenly had gotten. "I can tell you everything about the sex-lives of drosophila."

Johnny watched as Jaehyun laughed a genuine and hearty laugh, hands gripping the metal chains tightly so he wouldn't fall off. Johnny realized that for the first time in a genuine while, he felt happy. He could slowly start to feel his mind numb over from the cold and from sleep deprivation and from the weed, and it felt _good_.

He knew that he could never have gone out with a complete stranger like Jaehyun and felt pleased with himself and euphoric. He subconsciously thanked Jaehyun over and over for letting him have this night, for not making it uncomfortable or unpleasant. He didn't think what would happen once the night was over, nor did he think about how it all happened.

Johnny felt himself live in the present and in the present that he currently shared with someone else. Johnny didn't mean to feel himself slipping from the high pedestal he'd build himself seconds before.

"If I was an element, which one would I be?" Jaehyun asked, curiously wide eyes staring and startling Johnny from his thoughts.

"Shit, that's such a weird question," Johnny chuckled in disbelief. "Let me think."

Johnny could hear Jaehyun kick his feet around in the mulch.

"Something from the alkali family, like potassium," Johnny thought out loud.

Jaehyun's smile dropped. "You mean like the shit in bananas?"

"I mean, it's a metal. Super reactive and shit."

"I don't want to be potassium."

"Jesus, it's a fucking element, dude."

"Noo! Do a different one!"

"Jesus," Johnny muttered to himself. "What about sodium?"

"Are you calling me salty?" Jaehyun asked, raising his eyebrows at him.

"Definitely." Johnny agreed. "But sodium is cool. Alkali metals are super reactive 'cause their outermost electron doesn't require a shit ton of energy to be removed, therefore creating a bigger and more dangerous reaction."

Jaehyun nodded. "Am I super reactive?"

"Well," Johnny paused, realizing that _no_ , Jaehyun wasn't that reactive. In fact, he had no valid reason to compare Jaehyun to an alkali metal, at least not without sounding creepy. But that's all Johnny's ever wanted: a reaction—a good one. He wanted Jaehyun to be the breakthrough from his experiments. But that's not fair.

"Akali metals are also super soft and rare, I guess. I mean, look at francium. It fuckin' dies after 20-ish minutes. Not to mention the fact it can't even be found in nature and can only be synthesized in a lab, dude. Fucking weird." Johnny was impressed that he could remember this. "That's like, science-speak for 'you're one in a million'."

"Aww, bro.." Jaehyun sniffled and placed a hand on his chest. "That's so sweet. But why am I sodium and no franc—Francium? Francium."

"'Cause sodium is badass as fuck! Put that baby in water and it catches fire." Johnny exclaims in disbelief.

"Are you calling me hot now? Didn't know science can be this sexy," Jaehyun teased, moving his eyebrows up and down.

It kind of never crossed his mind that, oh yeah, Jaehyun might have been attracted to him. He felt kind of stupid for completely blowing it off when Jaehyun asked for his number or faked a sex-like scene in the bedroom that only Jaehyun and Johnny were probably seen entering. Despite this, Johnny still continued to paint over everything Jaehyun said in denial, perhaps in giddy or disgust for himself as a human being.

"What element do you think you'd be?" Jaehyun followed up and Johnny realized he hadn't replied to the previous flirt.

"Me? None, dude. I'm the chemist. I'm 65% oxygen, baby!" Johnny shot finger-guns Jaehyun's way. Ew.

"Lame. Also egotistic." Jaehyun shook his head. "What element reacts well with sodium?"

Johnny realized he did sound pretty cocky. "Uhh..literally any halogen. When halogens react with alkali metals, you get salt, hence why we have table salt, which is just chlorine and sodium. Very simple compound."

"Alright, then you'll be chlorine!"

"Mmm, I love being a literal toxic green gas."

"Oh, do not get fucking pouty about your elemental fursona."

"You're one to talk! Noooo! I don't _want_ to be potassium!"

"That's so different."

"How?"

"It just is!" Jaehyun hopped off the swing. "Come on, chloros, we're going on a walk. I'm starting to lose feeling in my legs. Maybe."

"Maybe?" Johnny asked, keeping up a competitive demeanor despite following Jaehyun as he ventured further into the woods.

"Gimme." Jaehyun ignored Johnny's questioning remark and pinched his fingers together to signal for Johnny to pass what was left of the pathetic little joint.

"S'cold," Johnny noted and coughed out the last of the smoke from his mouth. "Are you cold?"

Jaehyun gave him a wary look and took the flattened tip in his mouth again. "You're wearing a t-shirt, man. I can probably survive winter in this."

"Whatever," Johnny dropped the thought he wanted to project for 20 minutes now.

The cicadas were louder here. The sound was raw, harmonizing in some nostalgic and messy key that Johnny knew all too well.

Despite it being late-August, and a colder one above all, branches of dried pine-needles and untimely brown leaves from last fall littered the path and crunched under their feet. The silence surrounding them only made Johnny fixate on this more, marveling at how the seasons worked and how he found this amusing after 23 years of being alive.

Some fucked up part of his mind still prodded, and despite the woods being completely different from the ones he was in, he couldn't help but feel as if these leaves had watched him before. He wanted to rip at each fleshy crevice of his brain for being overactive at this state of high. He hoped the silence hadn't gotten stale by the time Johnny had crawled out of the pits of his memories and guilt.

"The cicadas are out."

The way Jaehyun had said it made Johnny want to question what kind of emotion-laced weed Mark got from his friends.

Johnny hummed.

"I wish I was one of those English majors who could recite poetry from their heads and make it sound deep," Jaehyun checked and Johnny focused on the reflections on his boots.

Johnny followed with another silence, welcoming Jaehyun's words in a way he haven't before. His heartbeat stuttered. His wrist twitched.

"I catch the pattern of your silence before you speak. I do not need to hear..." Jaehyun paused, unsure. "...a word? In your silence, every tone I seek is heard."

Johnny stifled a laugh. "Deep."

"Langston Hughes. I think. Fuck." Jaehyun craned his head back and groaned.

Johnny looked down, the smile fading slowly off his face. He gripped the fabric that covered his chest. He could feel his heart beating erratically beneath his palm.

"You okay?" Jaehyun gave him a quick glance.

"H—yeah—yes." His face grew flushed, the painful prick of sweat going unnoticed beneath the growing numbness in his skin. He felt each increasingly abnormal breath filter through the back of his throat.

Johnny couldn't think, a sudden panic throwing his thoughts off-kilter to the point that he couldn't think at all and all he could do was spectate on his own self like a master-less puppet.

He couldn't remember his own voice, but that matter wasn't important to him because all he could see behind his tear-blurred eyes was the silhouette of another man with his back facing him.

Johnny didn't remember sitting down but the moment his bare palm scraped the cement, he jumped. All he could hear was his own scratchy breathing, each inhale obnoxiously loud and never met with an exhale.

He grabbed at anything—his hair, his clothes, his skin—anything to ground him back into his own body, but with each contraction of his fingers, he just felt _his_ hair, _his_ clothes, _his_ laugh, _his_ memory, _his_ burden.

His heart bled with each trembling throb. His vision, once blinded by his own eyelids, was now overwhelmed by the shadow of an entity that didn't exist. He looked, he searched, he tried to materialize the physical being of what haunted him most—but he couldn't.

It frustrated him more than anything. He clenched his jaw, crushing his teeth like chalk. He wanted to rip off his skin. He wanted to break every bone in his body. He wanted to tear apart every joint in his body and feel them under the weight of his jaw.

Johnny kept gasping, he was sure of this. Each sweeping breath he took saw no end.

He felt him shake his arms. He felt his hand slide off and gently smooth over the expanse of his shoulder.

Who?

What?

"What's—"

Johnny missed it the first time, deafened by the sound of his own attempts to grab onto reality and claw through the intoxicated pit he dug himself into in the first place.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Johnny."

"Johnny?"

"J—Johnny, fuck."

His inner monologue.

His own soliloquy.

"I'm sorry." Who was he apologizing to? Jaehyun? His friends? His family? Him? "I'm so s—fuck, sorry."

"Hey, Johnny." Johnny felt ridiculed under Jaehyun's concerned gaze. "Let's talk about this, dude. Okay?"

Jaehyun was at his side now, carefully tucking his knees into a sitting position.

Johnny couldn't control his breathing. No matter how conscious he was of his surroundings, each exhale was a shuddering and pathetic sob. He gripped his knees tightly, too aware of how loud his breathing felt in the shadow of nature's sounds.

He held his breath, and only then would his trembling stop. He wanted to hold his breath forever.

Johnny tried again and again to stop this episode, but despite all awareness for his surroundings, for the warm body next to him, he couldn't stop. He felt embarrassed when a wobbly breath broke from his mouth with a whimper.

Jaehyun sat pliantly next to him, eyes to the ground beneath them almost as if he was trying to give Johnny space.

"Do you think it was the weed?" Jaehyun asked with his voice at a controlled volume. Johnny wanted to cry again.

"P—probab—bly. Shit, I'm—m s—sh—sorry. F—fuck." Johnny doesn't remember stuttering this bad before. It felt as if someone was playing tremolando with his vocal cords.

"Don't apologize dude." Jaehyun placed a gentle hand over the one Johnny kept on his knee. "Do you want to talk about it in a bit?"

Johnny felt ridiculous sitting in the middle of a trail, crying, and being babied by someone younger than him. He felt small and uncomfortable but nodded nonetheless because his angered heart knew he'd never see Jaehyun again after this night.

"Wish we'd brought water," Jaehyun laughed cautiously, squeezing his hand around Johnny's fingers.

"It's—s fine." Johnny swallowed around nothing. He took another deep, broken-up breath and straightened out, pulling his hand away from Jaehyun's.

"You feelin' better?" Jaehyun asked, turning to face Johnny.

Johnny wanted to shrink into himself. He felt a strong wave of repulsion towards himself. He swallowed again and nodded. "Yeah. Sorry I made you go through that. Ha..."

"What happened?" Jaehyun asked the question Johnny feared most.

"Ah, uh, puh—panic attack? I think? M—might be allergic to—to weed, haha," Johnny chuckled out, feeling awkward. He didn't feel any effects of the high anymore.

"I mean, why? Like..." Jaehyun trailed off, picking at the rubber of his shoes. "Did I say something?"

Fuck!

Johnny had enough sense to feel dread fall over him at the question. "No! Dude—" He cleared his throat,"—dude, you didn't do anything, I just have a—"

Free therapy session, huh?

Hi, Jaehyun. We just met but, aha... Let me tell you, I am a mess! Fucking shit-show! Circus! Watch me do cool trick where I die instantly!

Johnny didn't know how to word this. Jaehyun looked at him calmly but in the same naive manner that he knew would lead to more unwarranted questions.

"I think I might have—"

Shit. Too strong.

"Anxiety? Or...uh...trauma?" Jaehyun tried. "Did something trigger it?"

Johnny flinched at those words, hating the feeling and memories he associated with them. It's his fault, all of it. He had to stop blaming his friends.

"Uh, sort of. Yeah. Sorry." Johnny felt embarrassed again, reluctant to admit that something like being in a forest in an intoxicated state could make him react like this. He figured it was his first time being in a situation like this in a year. He looked around him and saw the black shadows of trees looking down at him.

Johnny hadn't thought of it before entering. His train of thought revolved around Jaehyun and Jaehyun only. He wanted to do anything and everything to please him, to make him laugh, smile, and react to him. He wanted to elicit every possible reaction from Jaehyun, but not this one. He didn't want to be the center of attention again. He didn't deserve it.

But that wasn't the truth, was it? It wasn't Johnny giving away parts of himself, but Jaehyun who was giving himself up to him.

For halogens and alkali metals to bond, the alkali metal must lose its one and only electron.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Jaehyun asked.

Johnny looked up at him, feeling a current running through them when he finds Jaehyun's big acrylic eyes on him.

Not really, he wanted to say. He didn't want to talk about it, not to someone who wouldn't understand. He didn't want to bring up his own ghosts, and he didn't want to feel guiltier than he did now. He'd repressed the thought of it for so long, and only the scent of it leaked out and that's what made him nauseous.

"I don't..." Johnny swallowed. "I don't want you to see me differently."

And that was the simplest truth.

His first and last night with Jaehyun wasn't supposed to end like this. Jaehyun was supposed to leave with the impression that Johnny was a relatively composed chemist working at a coffee shop to earn extra money on the side. He was the cool older friend that drove his friends around in his car. He was the quiet tall guy you'd find at parties who's fun to talk to. He was the partially wild friend that could get rowdy but never enough to not get away with it. He was

"Johnny," Jaehyun spoke softly but Johnny could hear the strain in his voice. Johnny realized how weird it was to hear his name be spoken from Jaehyun's mouth. His eyes fell to his lips as if hoping to see it be spoken again. The name almost sounded too nice to be his own. "Of course I'll see you differently. That's the whole point of telling something about themselves."

Johnny felt Jaehyun scoot closer to him until their shoulders were touching. Despite his own shaking, he could feel the shiver that ran through Jaehyun. So he _was_ cold.

Johnny processed the words and realized Jaehhyun was good at talking. What he feared most was Jaehyun's ability to analyze and think quickly. He was scared of not being in control of himself in the thoughts of others.

"You'll hate me afterwards," Johnny pressed.

"Then enlighten me. Don't make me like you without knowing the horrible crimes you've committed."

Johnny turned his head slightly, aware of the limited space between them to look Jaehyun in the eyes. Silence never bloomed between the two of them, interrupted by Jaehyun's ragged open-mouthed breathing and Johnny's unconventional sniffles. Johnny paused, gnawing at his bottom lip until it felt as thinned out as an old rubber band.

"I killed someone." Johnny felt the humid air bubble off his words and let them drift through the sky before popping and splattering all over the two of them.

But Jaehyun chuckled, a stifled laugh filtering through his nose. He shifted beside him.

"Literally? Or did something happen that you blame yourself for?"

Johnny wanted to look at Jaehyun and project the shock and disbelief he held in his eyes, but Jaehyun's cheek was already resting on Johnny's shoulder. So Johnny paused, looking at his lap.

"Literally," he swallowed. He wanted to impress the same hatred Johnny had for himself onto Jaehyun.

But Jaehyun laughed again, louder this time, with his lips parting to let way to an out-of-place breath. "I don't believe you."

"But you don't know me," Johnny retorted, voice raising and wavering in the addled state he was in.

"You're right," Jaehyun pressed closer. "I don't know you. Doesn't stop me from making observations. Like qualitative data. You're the chemist here."

"I dropped out of college. I'm not a chemist." Johnny felt angered. He didn't want Jaehyun to feel anything but hatred for Johnny. He wanted to feel sharp agitation in Jaehyun's voice. He gritted his teeth, hoping to bring feeling to his numb jaw.

The next measure was followed by an abrupt rest and continued as a syncopated rhythm. Johnny felt off. It felt wrong to talk to someone about this like this.

"Based on my observations, you're tall, kind of slow, and definitely way too sensitive. I'm no psych major or anything, but you wouldn't be able to murder someone and get away with it." And Jaehyun kept going, ignoring Johnny's previous statement. "So, no. You didn't literally kill anyone, Johnny. I don't think you're capable of doing it."

Johnny didn't know why he felt so irritated by Jaehyun's assumptions when he'd been just as guilty for making assumptions about him for months before properly meeting him. Fucking English majors.

"Tell me what happened. Don't augment it, my American psycho."

Despite all this, Johnny couldn't help but filter through Jaehyun's words and find the possessive pronoun in front of the name Jaehyun called him.

Johnny took a deep breath, tempted to push Jaehyun's head off his shoulder, but Jaehyun just kept nuzzling forward until he could feel the weight of Jaehyun's legs on his, and Johnny felt that doing anything about it was useless.

"He was...two years younger than us, a sophomore when we were seniors, but we were still good friends. I mean, fuck," Johnny paused and rubbed his face with his hand. Slowly, Johnny began to process that Jaehyun too was two years younger than Johnny.

Jaehyun's silence prompted him to go on. "He—" Johnny swallowed. "He was always kind of, almost like, _terrified_ of passing time, ever since he was a kid and—and, I guess it was because his life was kind of surrounded by people telling him to cherish his time, and maybe even the fact we were older than him. Everything around him was so much faster than he was—fuck—and maybe that's what broke him."

Jaehyun hummed. "You don't mention his name."

"No, I don't."

Silence.

"He was really sensitive to everything. I— _hah_ —I remember this time we were hanging out together for the first time in a _really_ long time, and it was only because his parents were hosting, like, this of bonfire thing—I don't know. And he cried in the middle of a Starbucks because I mentioned going away to college and just generally growing up. I don't remember him having many other friends other than me and Mark—the dude I was with earlier. It didn't really matter. We grew up together—I'm rambling."

Jaehyun nodded but gave no sign that he wanted Johnny to stop speaking. And Johnny didn't want to. He felt that he didn't even need to breathe. He opened the dam in his mind, and memories and words and ideas and thoughts kept pouring out through his mouth.

"I never thought about our age difference, really. To me, especially when we were alone, he was a peer to me and someone who could project thoughts and ideas more maturely than any of the friends my age did. But I could see it when we were with other people. He struggled to keep up, and it's my fault that I never stuck up for him. I just didn't know how to."

There were no stars in the sky. The sky was just a warm, cloudy navy.

"He was troubled by the idea that one day we were going to leave for college, somewhere far away, and we'd never be able to be as close as we are now. But I just—I never thought of it like that. I've never been friends with anyone older than me, at least never that close, so I didn't really know why he felt like that."

Johnny fidgeted with the tags of skin on his fingers, watching mindlessly as Jaehyun reached over to stop Johnny from doing so.

"His parents wouldn't let him go to college, so even if those two years pass and he makes it into the same college as me, it wouldn't matter cause his parents just, didn't want him spending his last years studying and putting pressure on himself." Johnny's heart sped up at the mention of his last years. He could feel Jaehyun stiffen slightly, almost as if he finally pieced together the puzzle.

"He begged me to stay. It...made me upset. I'd never seen him so selfish before, and I genuinely felt that it was just _ridiculous_ that he wanted me to give up my future just to stay back with him," Johnny swallowed. "I get it now. I do. I feel so stupid, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —"

"Hey." Jaehyun squeezed his fingers together with the palm of his hand. It wasn't the most comforting gesture, but it was enough to keep Johnny from beating himself up about it further. Johnny felt like crying again. He shivered when the already fallen teardrops that pooled onto Jaehyun's arm slid onto his.

"I'm so sorry." Jaehyun's low voice felt louder now that his mouth was nearly up to his ear.

Johnny closed his eyes.

"But you can't blame yourself for what happened, you know that. I know you do." Again, Johnny should feel upset that Jaehyun chose now to pretend that he knew more about Johnny than he did, but it's exactly what everyone had told him already. Maybe people were more connected than he thought.

"I can't _not_ blame myself. I pushed him to his limits, dude. I _hurt_ him, and I can't imagine there being anything worse than fucking—fuck—fucking _dying_ knowing that you and the person you trusted most never resolved your issues. He couldn't talk to me after that. I spent the summers back from college hoping he or his parents would come over, and not _once_ did I try to go over to his house. I _never_ made the move to resolve the issues we had and now—and now I can't do anything. I can't do _shit_ to make it better." Johnny could barely speak over his tears. They weren't the same ones from earlier. These were hot and didn't seem to cool even when they dripped past his chin and onto his chest and arms.

He felt like he was on fire.

The loud part of Johnny's mind felt accomplished that he'd finally made someone shut up about the situation, accomplished that he'd finally made someone agree with his point of view, and yet, somehow he didn't feel proud of it. He felt defeated.

Jaehyun unlatched his hand from Johnny's fingers and instead laced his fingers through his. Johnny felt worse than he had in a while, but somehow, he felt free. His anxiety screamed at him, punishing him for telling Jaehyun these kinds of details about his life when he's only been talking to him for a few hours now, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

He didn't care. He didn't care. He didn't care.

And yet—

"I'm so, so sorry," Johnny sobbed out, voice quiet and whiny like it hadn't been before. He felt pity. He felt remorse.

"This," Jaehyun inhaled deeply beside him. "Isn't something you could help, man. I really can't speak broadly on this, but I think..." he paused. "I think the best thing you can do is to remember him under a positive light. Just, remember him. Maybe even though your friendship ended abruptly and on a sour note, but all wounds heal. I'm sure he didn't spend every day loathing you or wishing you'd stayed home instead of...you know...going to college."

Johnny listened, unable to say anything coherent.

"As time passes, we grow. I mean, it's just not possible for a person to stay the same for years—hell—hours. I mean, that's just how time is. Every moment is fleeting, and it's just so, so hard to accept that as people who are so trained to focus on the past."

The sound of cicadas enveloped them again.

"Forgive me for being insensitive, but I'd imagine that your friend wouldn't wish the worst upon you. He probably understood that college and your future are really important to you." Jaehyun tightened his grip on Johnny's fingers, almost as if he was scared Johnny would let go. "It's important to think about the future and past, but what's in the present will ultimately be lost in the process. Honestly, I don't know where I'm going with this, but...I feel like—I feel like you spending so much time regretting something you did three or four years ago is taking away from the time that he gifted you, you feel?"

Johnny felt conflicted. He couldn't even think. Any thought that started ultimately met a dead end and faded into the pile of other incomplete thoughts.

He felt almost as if Jaehyun didn't have to right to speak about this so freely, but what was stopping him? All these years, he'd been so focused on what _he_ did and how _he_ felt. In turn, he became the biggest self-centered narcissist he'd feared he would become. He was constantly filled with regret and disgust, but disgust for himself and no one else. He was on his mind all the time, and it was to the point that he couldn't think of much else.

In some ways, he felt that Jaehyun was right, but his own thinking was so muddled that he couldn't even discern what was right and what was wrong.

Johnny tried to think about all the times he'd spent living in the unchangeable past rather than doing something that mattered or could matter in the future. He felt stupid for spending so much time hurting rather than growing.

He looked back at all of his friends who had to go through the same trauma that Johnny had to go through. He looked back at Mark, who had been close—nearly just as close—to him as Johnny had been. He looked back at his parents who had to deal with the inevitable and early death of their son. He looked now at the thick, pink scar that had grown over their hearts, and then he looked at his own red, bloodied heart.

He was selfish for assuming he was the only one going through this. He was stupid for not accepting the help people gave him. He was foolish for not realizing that others were hurting, too, and it wasn't just him who needed help.

Johnny sniffled. "What time is it?"

"Uhm," Jaehyun shuffled around for his phone. "Nearing two in the morning. S'that okay?"

"Yeah," Johnny whispered out and looked back down to his hands.

Johnny was startled by Jaehyun's sharp inhale but didn't bring himself to look at him in alarm.

"Okay, I'm not going to let you rot away in your feelings and or get mauled by wolves in the forest. Let's go." Johnny was surprised by Jaehyun's sudden change in mood. He finally watched as Jaehyun stood and tugged at Johnny's arms to give way so he could pull him up.

"I didn't mean for you to get this down. Please let me cheer you up," Jaehyun whined, swinging Johnny's arms back and forth. "I'll do anything. I'll give you a piggyback ride or something! I'll buy you ice-cream! I will ask for your hand in marriage, anything."

The initial shock of Jaehyun acting so abrupt and out of character was what made Johnny momentarily forget the reason Jaehyun was acting like this in the first place. With a heavy heart, he finally offered a shy smile back to Jaehyun.

This seemed to get Jaehyun excited again, letting go of Johnny's hands so he could wrap a friendly arm around his shoulders and pull him along out of the forest. Johnny understood what Jaehyun was trying to do, and he appreciated it. It's what had gotten him this far.

The art of distraction.

"I saw a plaza somewhere around here. Do you want to see if we can get some snacks or something? I'm so hungry. Weed makes me hungry. I think that's everyone," Jaehyun rambled and rambled, filling the still silence with noise.

Johnny took his free hand and wiped his eyes, feeling the finally cool tears still against the back of his hand. 

"God, I love the suburbs. Everything is so close together," Jaehyun mused, pulling Johnny along the sidewalk towards the abundance of streetlights in view. "I want to live here."

Johnny found that maybe putting more effort into the conversation himself would help. "D'you want to pull a parasite? I'm sure you have some skill on you."

"Fuck, man! I loved that movie. I don't even watch movies." Johnny could once again feel the exertion on Jaehyun's throat.

"Nerd." Johnny scoffed and sniffled, starting to smile despite his thoughts telling him he doesn't deserve to be happy.

"Listen," Jaehyun threw an unamused look Johnny's way. "Say what you want about English majors, but I genuinely do not have time to watch movies or shows unless they're for a class. They give us so much to read, man! Even during the summer! Bullshit."

"I feel like that's a given, no?" Johnny moved to dry his eyes again, feeling the thickness in his throat dissipate and clear up. 

Jaehyun sighed loudly next to him. "Trueee, arg. I just hate the stereotype cause it's true. We should watch something together sometime."

Shock therapy works too.

"What?" Johnny's voice initially cracked, but who could blame him? "I mean, yeah, sure. School's starting soon though, are you sure?"

Johnny basked in the warmth of Jaehyun's laugh. "I mean, I wouldn't ask you if I wasn't sure. Why go to parties now if I don't have time to watch movies? Did I even word that right? Hold on..." Jaehyun murmured to himself. 

"I mean, I'm sure parties are more fun than spending your time with me," Johnny shrugged.

"I feel like now you're just contradicting everything you said before. Did I not just run away with you to smoke some stale weed at a children's playground? Did that not just happen?"

Johnny thought back to when they first had this conversation. Right! Johnny was thinking of kissing him. Mmmm..mm.moh fuck

Johnny could also tell that Jaehyun was trying very hard not to bring up anything that happened roughly ten minutes ago, but he couldn't tell if it was because Jaehyun didn't want to think about it or if Jaehyun didn't want Johnny to think about it. Probably both. Johnny shivered. 

But he felt better, he did. There was a dull ache in his chest, something he wasn't entirely used to. He, for one, wasn't used to having so much attention on him, and frankly he didn't want it. This kind of attention, he reckoned (FUCK!) wasn't the worst type of attention.

"I could've been any other person with a thingie of weed, and you would've gone with them in a heartbeat," Johnny fired back, though at this point accepting that sure, maybe Jaehyun wasn't entirely doing this out of pity or weed. Jaehyun had won, but Johnny felt the victory nonetheless.

"But _you're_ the person with a thingie of weed, so it's special, right? Like destiny or something." Jaehyun's eyes were locked in front of him when Johnny turned to face him.

"Destiny? I wouldn't go that far. I think I just told you my life story, sobbed a little—a lot, and got high with you."

"My Romeo."

"I'm not an English major, and I can tell you that _that_ is not the plot of Romeo and Juliet."

"Well, actually, I'm not connecting this to the story of Romeo and Juliet, but rather using Romeo as a symbol for romance, therefore comparing and contrasting our modern society to the one presented in the set—"

"Shut the fuck up. I cannot believe I didn't stop you when you started talking about symbolism. _Gross_ ," Johnny gagged. 

"Your fault for ditching a party for a young English major," Jaehyun shrugged, looking at Johnny smugly. 

"Do _not_ act like you're the only English major I know. You're the only cringey and awful one I've come across," Johnny scoffed, folding his arms across his chest and therefore taking Jaehyun's squished hand with him.

"I mean," Jaehyun drawled, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows. "You did leave that party...to be with the only cool English major."

"I'll strangle you. Right here."

"And what, risk Neighbour Suzy calling the neighbourhood watch on you?" Jaehyun cackled, poking Johnny's bicep before shuffling aside to get away from him. 

"You're so _loud_!" Johnny gasped dramatically, pushing Jaehyun even farther away from him until Jaehyun stumbled off the sidewalk and into the neatly mulched bushes that lined it. 

"I can be louder," Jaehyun grinned, skipping around Johnny with raised arms as to not get hit.

"Ew," Johnny furrowed his eyebrows and turned his head away from Jaehyun, partially because he didn't want Jaehyun to see the embarrassment on Johnny's face from the implications. Jaehyun flirting with him! Openly! Maybe? Oh god.

"What?" Jaehyun teased, coming back to Johnny's side. "Scared of a little sexual tension?"

HRGGrggrabbarbkrrbrbrbeebeegerggrgaggagaaraaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.

Johnny inhaled sharply. 

"Terrified. I'll piss myself."

"Go ahead. Do it."

Johnny sent Jaehyun an alarmed expression. "What?"

"Piss yourself."

"Man," Johnny groaned. "This is less sexual tension and more just Tension."

Jaehyun giggled (GHHRBBbbrHbrbAHAGGBGBAAAAAarrrbabrbaq). "But tension nonetheless. Didn't you want a reaction?"

"Huh?" Johnny asked, trying to lower his voice as they finally approached the small plaza. "Yes, but you're the one that's supposed to be reactive, not me!"

"Is this some chemical fanfiction? Am I supposed to strictly be the one who's reacting?" Jaehyun whined. "I don't want to be some pathetic sub of an element."

"I have no idea why but this just sounds so bad. Oh my god, stop sexualizing the periodic table." Johnny covered his ears but found that maybe he should be covering Jaehyun's mouth instead.

Never in his life would he have imagined Jaehyun to be like this. He didn't know if Jaehyun was still just really high or what, but Johnny felt painfully sober and way too sensitive to whatever shit Jaehyun was spewing from his mouth.

"Something about chemical reactions is so—" 

"Hey!! This gas station is still open! Nice!" Johnny quickly interrupted to save his heart from literally withering in his chest.

The station would have been completely empty if not for the three cars that were parked outside of it. Johnny wondered who else would be out at two in the morning if at least two of the cars didn't belong to the workers.

"You're getting me ice-cream, right?" Johnny asked, pulling open the door and startling as the bell chimed above them. 

"I thought you were cold," Jaehyun eyed Johnny suspiciously. 

Frankly, crying, talking, walking very fast, and getting assaulted by pick-up lines and sexual innuendos was enough to make Johnny feel like even his t-shirt and jeans were too stuffy. 

"If I get to spend someone else's money, I'll do it."

"I'm just a college student, Johnny. Cut me some slack."

There it was again—his name. He heard it clearly now without the influence of a headache or tears, and it made his stomach lurch and his heart disintegrate. Huh.

He wanted to ask Jaehyun to say it again. He wanted to hear it over and over again. He may be selfish for that, but it felt like heroin to him. 

Johnny swallowed down ashes his heart left in his mouth. 

"I work in a cafe, Jaehyun. Cut me some slack."

"I like the way you say my name. You're Korean?" Jaehyun asked, nodding a greeting towards the tired cashier. 

"Did we not establish this earlier?" Johnny laughed in slight disbelief. 

Jaehyun hummed, "Mm. Have you ever been there?"

"Oh, yeah. Definitely." Once.

When he was 7. 

"It's so nice there, man. So fucking pretty." 

Johnny looked up and watched, giving up on acting sane and admiring the way Jaehyun's lips moved as he talked. 

There was a part of Johnny that wished he'd known Jaehyun longer. He wanted to feel a stronger and more established connection with him. He did a good job of pretending that Jaehyun was an old friend that he'd known for a few years now, but he wasn't. Even through their comfortable interactions, there were some things about Jaehyun that Johnny just didn't know and wouldn't be able to know until Jaehyun completely gave himself up to him. 

Johnny nodded and listened, picking out a frost-covered ice-cream packet from the limited assortment the store had left. He couldn't help but think about how Jaehyun was in Korea, maybe even in Canada. Did he have friends there that he left behind? Did he care?

He looked back up at Jaehyun. Every second he spent with Jaehyun inevitably left him more and more confused about who Jaehyun was as a person. Johnny was so convinced he read him right the first time he'd seen him. Every action he made, Johnny could relate it back to the fictional story he'd made up. 

The Jaehyun in front of him was not the one he remembered from the cafe. This Jaehyun was soft-spoken, flirty, open, and friendly. Johnny couldn't help but think that this Jaehyun was smart, too, given that he knew how to hold a mindless conversation without it growing too dry.

This Jaehyun was also intoxicated, still loose-mouthed and giggly. Johnny retracted his previous statement about Jaehyun being a lightweight. He'd seen Jaehyun smoke more than him, and while being in a state of shock may have helped him sober up, there was no possible way Jaehyun would have been so coherent and stable beside him.

"I don't know man. I know that the people here are a lot more accepting, and I know damn well that my grandparents would not have been as okay with me spending the night getting high with and flirting with a dude as my parents would be. And that's not even to say that my parents are still like, _that_ accepting about me being bi. They're more confused, I guess? I don't know—" Johnny zoned out again, nodding during silent intervals and humming when he thought was right. 

He was conflicted.

He wanted to kiss Jaehyun.

He wanted to kiss Jaehyun, but his mind was running around gathering up reasons why that was a terrible idea. Johnny was never the type of person to make the first move on the first date—God, was this a date? Would Jaehyun have thought it was a date? It was not a date! It literally wasn't. 

Would that be too soon? Wasn't that how hook-ups worked? Johnny didn't know. 

"Sorry, am I talking too much?" Jaehyun asked, pushing Johnny out of his panicked thoughts. 

"Huh? No, sorry. Zoned out," Johnny cleared his throat, scratching his forearm.

"What's on your mind that's more important than my riveting rant about societal norms and capitalism?" Jaehyun raised his eyebrows, leaning against the glass refrigerator door. 

"Huh?" Johnny leaned forward, eyes widened. "Uh...nothing. Taxes."

"Taxes?"

"Yeah."

"Mmn," Jaehyun hummed, looking up at Johnny and quirking up the side of his mouth. Johnny licked his lips. Dry! They were so dry!!

"Let's pay. I want ice-cream," Johnny quickly diverted, shifting weight from one leg to the other.

Jaehyun nodded, leaning forward again. "Did you want anything else?"

"Are you treating me?" Johnny joked.

"Geez, man. You're the hag here. You should be treating me." Jaehyun shook his head and took his card from his phone case. "Can't imagine what you're like on dinner dates."

Do it.

Do it. Do it oh my god do it do it

"Do you wanna—want to find out?" FUCK. 

Jaehyun glanced up at Johnny, expression daring. "Are you asking me out, babe?"

AAAAAAAAAAAASFJHHGRRRBRBRBACAAAAAAAAAAGGGNGNRNNRNRALAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA你好？你好吗？??? HAHAA GRRRRAAAПохорони меня сейчас.fujcFUCK.

"Babe?" Johnny could have sworn he just swallowed his own esophagus. He honestly didn't mean to repeat it, but even on autopilot, all his brain could think of is _babebabebabebabebabe._

"Is that a yes?" Jaehyun pressed, leaning closer to Johnny and trapping him between the refrigerators and crates of chips. 

Johnny felt bad for the worker that stood tiredly at the cash register, probably counting down the hours until he could clock out. He couldn't remember the arrangement of the store well enough to know if they were in his line of sight. Either way, he felt bad. But Jaehyun....Jaehyun..mm..

"I mean..." Next problem! Jaehyun wanting Johnny to take him to dinner. 

The actual dinner-taking was fine. Johnny figured he could find a few more on-the-side jobs so he could save up for a nice dinner with Jaehyun, but it wasn't the extra grind he was scared of.

The very idea of involving himself with another person, someone with a body, a brain, and a separate line of thoughts and ideas that may oppose his, terrified him to the core. Steering directly off of the idea that for once Johnny could find someone that made him happy, he feared for the negatives.

He didn't want to break Jaehyun's heart by doing something stupid as he'd done before. He didn't want Jaehyun to discover the even uglier parts of his habits. He was so scared of the idea of being imperfect in the eyes of someone he would soon learn to care for.

But the weed!

"I don't want you to regret this after you sober up," Johnny forced out a laugh, trying to look anywhere but Jaehyun's eyes. 

Somehow, this made Jaehyun smile one of his cocky little smiles that made Johnny want to immediately find the tallest building and jump off of it. "Johnny, it's been nearly two if not more hours since I left that party _sober_ to hang out with you. Do you have no awareness of time or human biology, Mr. Biochemistry?"

Johnny gulped comically, still hoping to push his denial onto Jaehyun. "I think the human brain is more psychology than bioch—" Johnny cut himself off when he met Jaehyun's annoyed eyes. 

"Ask me out. Do it."

"I don't think that's how—"

"Do it."

"Fine!" Johnny shut his eyes, mentally preparing to sign his soul off to the devil. "Can—can I take you out to dinner sometime?"

"Mm, say it again."

"What?" Johnny opened his eyes, his pupils tracing over the devious curve of Jaehyun's lips. Stupid brain! Stupid, stinky ape brain. 

"C'mon. Don't be shy." Johnny could feel Jaehyun's stifled laugh on his cheek.

"Shit—fine! Jesus. Will you go out with me? Please?" Johnny grimaced, feeling like a high school kid proposing to his crush, except it was his crush forcing him to confess, and they were in college. Shit analogy. Shit brain.

"So cute," Jaehyun pouted, pulling away from Johnny. Johnny still couldn't breathe. "Of course I will. You asked so nicely."

AAAH? AAAH???

"Ice-cream's probably melted. Let's go." Johnny watched as Jaehyun pushed through to isles and to the cash register. 

After a few rushed "Thank you!"s and "Goodnight :D!"s, they finally made their way towards the sliding doors. 

"It's not as cold anymore," Johnny noted, hastily unwrapping the packet of ice-cream that Jaehyun paid for. 

"Yeah. Y'got your blood rushing," Jaehyun clicked his tongue and pressed the fruit popsicle to his lips. 

Intrusive thought: "Does it hurt your tongue when you eat cold things? Like...I don't know..." 

"Mmn," Jaehyun paused, pursing his lips. "Not really. I could only eat cold things while it was healing. It feels good."

Johnny had to keep his mouth sealed over the melted cone to keep himself from whining. 

"Do you have any piercings?" Jaehyun started walking in the direction of the metal bike-rack at the side of the brick building.

Johnny laughed, "Yeah. Mark and I got matching ear piercings in high school. I only wear earrings to sleep though, so the holes don't close up."

"Aww," Jaehyun frowned. "Why not wear them always?"

Johnny raised his eyebrows at Jaehyun and leaned back against the wall. "I already look like an asshole without them in. I really don't need studs to make it worse."

"Pfft. Just get dangly ones. You have a square face, so something round or loose would complement it well," Jaehyun scrunched his nose. "Don't get studs. Please, please do not."

"What, are you a fashion designer now?" Johnny questioned mockingly, biting through the first layer of the waxy and soggy cone. 

"God, oh fuck. I wish. That'd be so fun," Jaehyun mused, pressing the popsicle to his bottom lip. Hrg. "Would you be my model?" Jaehyun's eyes shifted to Johnny and he grinned. Johnny nearly passed out.

Why'd you become an English major then?

No, I don't have model attributes. 

No! You should be the model.

"Your popsicle's gonna melt."

Stupid! Cover blown! Retreat! 

"Yeah?" Jaehyun breathed, chest turning towards Johnny. 

Johnny's thigh pressed into the bicycle rack behind him. His bicep brushed against the brick wall as he turned away from Jaehyun. The sleeve of his shirt rode up along the rough surface.

"I mean, up to you, I guess? It's getting on your fingers." Johnny stupidly looked down at the popsicle stick wedged between Jaehyun's thumb and index finger. He couldn't tell if he was helping build this tension. 

There was a beat of silence between them, Jaehyun searching for something in Johnny's eyes, and Johnny looking around helplessly as to not meet Jaehyun's eyes. 

"Do you wanna try it?" Heh? Huh? "It's strawberry-flavoured." 

Johnny tasted nothing but salt on his tongue. 

"I'm like, sort of allergic to strawberries," Johnny retaliated, nearly crushing his ice-cream cone.

"And I'm lactose intolerant. It's not enough to stop me from wanting to kiss you."

Johnny's jaw tensed, his throat feeling tighter than before. His heart was racing so fast, Johnny thought he was about to pass out.

To put it short: many thoughts. 

"Come on," Jaehyun said, his voice low in something that almost resembled a whisper. Jaehyun's hand reached for his, pushing the ice-cream cone up to Johnny's lips. Johnny hesitantly bit down on the vanilla ice-cream, melted and exposed from underneath the cardboard cone he'd bitten through. He watched with cautious curiosity as Jaehyun's lips wrapped around and snapped the tip from the popsicle. 

Frankly, Johnny didn't know what confidence had pulsed through him to actually follow through with Jaehyun's request. He very much would have let Jaehyun kiss him regularly, or maybe he would have even just taken the popsicle from Jaehyun's hand and tried it himself. 

The logical side of his mind informed him that this was super gross, like next-level gross, but when Jaehyun first leaned in, lips parted and arms finding themselves around Johnny's neck, he could barely even find it in himself to care.

The weight of Jaehyun's hands on his neck was comforting, something akin to an anchor pulling him down from the heaven he'd ascended to. He didn't mind the loose strands of Jaehyun's hair tickling his cheek. He wasn't entirely used to the strain he felt in his neck from leaning down and angling his head.

Johnny didn't have time to appreciate the welcoming yet foreign feeling of Jaehyun's lips on his before he made out the sickeningly sweet taste of Jaehyun's tongue on his. He felt his own tongue shaking, saliva and cream pooling at the back of his throat. Johnny thought he would choke if not for Jaehyun tipping his head forward. 

Johnny tried desperately to isolate the taste of the saccharine strawberry from Jaehyun's tongue, but all he could taste was the salt of his own reaction. He felt his throat dry up and the crenation of his cells begin. He felt thirsty, desperate for liquid to free him from the desiccated hell he found himself in.

He choked and gasped for air, but each breath was cold and dried out his throat further. He felt the first sparks from the reaction before he saw them ignite like fireworks in his eyes. Jaehyun shifted and hissed, almost as if he could already feel the heat from the fire that burned hot in Johnny's throat.

Jaehyun pulled back, syrup-like spit coating his lips and chin as he moved down to press sticky kisses over the expanse of his jaw and neck. Johnny could feel Jaehyun's throat bobbing as he swallowed the spit from his mouth, and he instinctively did the same, hoping to drown out the flames that kept rising in his throat. 

Gently, Johnny threaded his fingers through Jaehyun's soft hair, pushing the loose strands from his forehead in an attempt to ground himself again. 

The flames now scorched the roof of his mouth, burning his teeth to ash. 

Jaehyun grabbed onto Johnny's hair to force his head to the side. Johnny let him do so, learning to submit to the fire burning orange in the cup of his mouth. All Johnny had to do was part his lips and let them fly free from his mouth and into the night sky, illuminated grey from the street lights. 

Jaehyun stamped kisses onto Johnny's neck. Johnny felt that if he looked into a mirror, he would see them there in bright red ink. 

The flames set in and he cried out in pain.

"Ow!" Johnny tightened his grip on Jaehyun's hair and pulled him back. "Asshole!"

Jaehyun looked up at him and smiled sheepishly, drying his mouth with the collar of Johnny's shirt. 

"Why did you bite me, bro? You're like a fucking raccoon, man," Johnny frowned in pain, rubbing the wet patch of skin with his fingers.

"Honestly," Jaehyun sounded breathless. God. "I don't know why. Tasted good though. You're a little bit sweaty."

"Asshole. And gross!" Johnny furrowed his eyebrows, all too aware of the blood that traveled from his toes to his face. He felt like he could fly. "You're so weird."

Jaehyun shrugged, wrapping his arms around Johnny's bicep. Johnny noticed that Jaehyun had dropped his half-eaten popsicle on the floor. "I just have a certain appreciation for the natural taste of humans. Earthy. Sweaty—"

Johnny looked down at his hand and saw the crushed ice-cream cone between his fingers, vanilla ice-cream dripping onto the side of his jeans and his shoes. 

"Fuck!" The exclamation made Jaehyun pull back and pause his sentence.

"Hah," Jaehyun let out a breathy laugh. "Fuck. You should have dropped it while you could have. God, you're so strong."

"Shit, man, I didn't want to throw away your two dollars and three cents just cause we were gonna make out. Aww, man!" Johnny grimaced, shaking the melted ice-cream from his fingers. "My fingers are gonna be sticky. Oh, and my neck! Thanks for that, but the way."

"Drama queen," Jaehyun groaned and rolled his eyes, taking Johnny's sticky hand in his. Hrrggghnnrnrnrngnngghhg. "See?" And yes, Johnny saw as Jaehyun ran his pierced tongue over the palm of his hand. Many thoughts. 

"That's so gross, dude. Your hand's been on the floor. In the woods. Come on, dude." God, so many thoughts. 

"Protein," Jaehyun shrugged, dropping his hand to his side.

"No! No protein! Dirt has literally no nutritional value."

"Whatever," Jaehyun leaned forward to press a kiss to Johnny's lips but Johnny placed a hand between them to stop him. 

"Johnny, my man, my browski, my dude." Jaehyun grabbed onto Johnny's wrist. "I hope you do realize that I am currently full of adrenaline and am desperate enough to suck your little dirt fingers right in the middle of a gas station. Please, for your sanity and mine, do not test me."

Johnny might have flat-lined right then and there if not for Jaehyun forcing his hand out of the way and kissing him again. On second thought, he might already be dead. Time to find out if God was real or if the Devil lived inside of Jaehyun.

Perhaps the latter. Or God was just a dick.

Jaehyun pinched Johnny's neck and pulled away, making Johnny emit a noise of confusion. 

"Well," Jaehyun paused and looked around. "Where do we go from here?"

Oh. Johnny hadn't thought that far. The weed had been smoked and the kiss had been kiss...kissened....kissed..Kissed!

"We could go back to the party?" Johnny offered before a cracked and flickering lightbulb lit up in his head. "Fuck, I totally ditched Mark and stole his weed. Oh my god. I'm dead. Fuck!"

Johnny pulled his phone out in a haste, the one he'd had on mute ever since his end-of-the-semester group lab project. "I'm literally dead. Jaehyun, man, dude, bury me right now."

Jaehyun leaned over to look at Johnny's phone, eyes widening at the amount of missed calls and text messages that filled up the small screen. "Yikes."

"Hah," Johnny breathed out. "It's kind of your fault. Maybe we should just, like, run away to Korea. I'll learn Korean for you. I'll do it."

"Dude, your friend is like a head shorter than you. You could probably deadlift him," Jaehyun murmured, taking Johnny's phone in his hand. "And if you can't, I stand a good chance in a fight."

"What kind of friends do you have? Jesus," Johnny scoffed and turned to examine the cuts and bruises on Jaehyun's face. He'll ask about it later. "Whatever. I'll just—I'll just figure it out later. Live in the present, right?"

Jaehyun's face lit up, a smile—ARRGHGHH—adorning his features. "Yeah."

A whole rest. 1 e + a, 2 e + a, 3 e + a, 4 e + a.

Johnny held his breath. 

He hadn't noticed his waltz turn into a symphonic piece, finally resolved into common time.

Johnny breathed out. 

Many words aren't mean to be said, and yet he—

"Yeah."

And yet,

"I don't really care."

"Wait, but seriously where are we going to go? Do you live somewhere around here?"

" _Here_? You think I'm getting down and dirty with my lovely neighbour Kelly right before she takes her kids to baseball practice?"

"God, you'd _so_ be into that."

-

**Author's Note:**

> i have nothing to say except that i've been writing this for a year. 
> 
> it took me so long to finish this and polish it that i couldn't really even read it over cause it took too long. sorry if there were any awkward moments or mistakes, but i really hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> make sure to leave a comment and kudos! i love u all stay healthy! <3
> 
> \- soy


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